Gear Autobiography (Patreon)

So I've spent an awful lot of time lately thinking about my career, where it's been, where it's going, all that. This is in no small part connected to the time I've spent thinking about James Somerton's equipment combined with a general air of retrospect that seems to be sweeping through YouTubers my age.

On the Somerton thing, I've made public comments about his gear acquisitions and while most people took those in the spirit that they were intended, focusing on the circumstances under which he obtained the money for that equipment rather than the equipment itself, I have seen a slim minority of people either missing that point or yes-and-ing that point to sort of encompass equipment as a whole. The camera that James bought with donations functionally extorted by holding his channel hostage was a Sony FX6.

In a vacuum my opinion is that any YouTuber who felt like the FX6 was the right fit for their needs is absolutely justified in getting one. It's a camera favoured by videographers who do stock, corporate, and wedding videography, three types of video that overlap a lot with YouTubers in terms of the scope of their needs and the size of their business. It was absolutely overkill for what James was doing with it, and he clearly didn't know how to use it properly, but given the cine-dramatic intent of his channel, the scope of his income, the size of his business, it wasn't an awful decision in isolation.

The problem is that all of that can be said about the Ursa Mini G2 that he already owned, a camera that is a direct competitor to the FX6, being a similar age, size, target user, and price. They are, in scope, two different companies' versions of the same camera. He also barely knew how to use that one.

Setting aside the dishonesty, this interplay between James and his gear was clearly motivated by various aspirations, he "needed" an assortment of "real cinema cameras" for the Telos pictures that he was "just about to start." And there's a good possibility that he believed that to be true, to the degree that he believed anything.

But as I tweeted about James' gear from my basement office, surrounded by various bits and bobs of equipment totalling a substantial amount of money it triggered an insecurity in me, not only about my own vulnerability to Gear Acquisition Syndrome (which I absolutely am weak to), but a deeper fear of self-delusion: to what degree are my own purchases fantasy aspirations? What did I get because it fixed a material problem, and what did I get purely because it made me feel more like a "real filmmaker"?

Then, also tied up in Harry's video, I watched James Rolfe's disastrous 2021 behind the scenes video, which is a whole can of worms of its own for some other time, but it cascaded off the Somerton stuff in my brain.

In pondering that I wondered "do I make a gear video?" See, I've never really done one before. I've toured various pieces of equipment during live streams, often because chat has asked a technical question that I felt needed a visual aid, and then once I get talking, well, the rest just kinda happens. But I've never done a gear video before because, they're kinda tacky, right?

Behold! My stuff!

They're the bottom-barrel of the bottom barrel for filler content, literally just sitting in your production space talking about the things that are in your line of sight, and I've watched every single one posted by any and every channel that I subscribe to because I am part of the problem, the sickness is inside me, too.

So after mulling over all these ideas, some kinda heavy and others decidedly frivolous, I opted to create this... thing, a gear video but arranged autobiographically.

And I'll be honest, it was a lot of fun to make. I went into it improvisationally and gave myself permission to let it be a little bit bad and just do whatever extra random thing struck me as a good idea as I made it.

So, yeah, hope y'all enjoy.

Edit: I literally just now noticed the auto-generated thumbnail YouTube chose. I'm leaving it.